In Another Time
by Skins Head
Summary: AU. This universe is a bit different from most others. But somethings will always stay the same. Naomily with quite a few of the others making appearances.
1. Prologue

**A/N: So I'm not really sure where the hell this story came from, and it's, it's a bit strange, but hopefully you'll like it. This is really short, it's just the prologue, but the first real chapter should be up later today.**

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**Prologue**

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The universe fucks up. A lot. In fact, it fucks up so much and so gloriously that one day, I'm sure, it will be its own demise.

Now, I know you're all too aware of the injustices of the universe and, really, life in general. However, I bet you barely understand your own life's problems, let alone the problems of the universe.

Essentially, the problem with the universe is that it's infinitely large and infinitely complicated. The largeness is made up by it's literal space, which might as well be infinite (if it's not actually), and the space that time takes up. The thing about time is that it's infinite, it went on before this universe began and it will go on for long after it ends.

The problem with time is that it's complicated, infinitely complicated if you will. Obviously, one second comes after another and you can only travel forwards through time and at constant rate, blah blah blah. But, and this is a rather impressively large but, those "truths" only count for a particular stream of time.

There are an infinite number of streams of time. In fact, there are so many that every time is happening all the time. You see, time in your stream is simple, it moves forward and you with it, and the other streams all follow this rule. The difference is that they've all started at a different time relative to your stream. In fact, every microsecond of a millisecond of another microsecond a new time stream is "beginning."

So, you see, right now the big bang is expanding, the Tyrannosaurus Rex is ruling the land, Mark Antony is banging Cleopatra, the Earth is decaying in on its self, and you, well you're reading _this _(poor choice if you ask me).

All of this is always happening. Every second of every day these events and every other one are happening. You just can't tell because you're stuck in one stream.

The universe is supposed to keep track of all these streams and who goes where and when, but, again, it's all so complicated that, unavoidably, the universe fucks it up and throws some poor innocent soul into the wrong stream of time.

Big deal, you say, who cares!

The universe does.

The universe knows it cocked it up and that infuriates it because now some kid mean to be born in 1920s America is slinging it with the Spartans. He's stuck in the wrong time without anyway of getting to the right one. The real problem with this is that if you're in the wrong stream, you'll miss your inevitables.

What's an inevitable, you ask. Well an inevitable, quite simply, is inevitable. They are the things you must do, and will do (so long as you're in the right stream), no matter what other choices you've made.

That's right, free will is limited. So yes, you are an individual and no one can tell you what to do, but you're going to do it anyway, regardless of what you think.

Everyone has at least two inevitables: to be born and to die. Those could be the only two inevitables you were given or every moment of your life could be an inevitable. There's no way of telling. And your inevitables don't have to be some wildly important event. They could be walking down a particular street or eating an apple (or hell, even reading this shit), but they have to happen in the right place and in the right time.

If you don't complete all of them in the right place and right time then you can't move on to whatever is after this life (I've never been there so don't bother asking me what it is. It could be anything: heaven or hell or paradise or nothingness, your guess is as good as mine).

Basically, you can't die, well at least of natural causes. Any unnatural death, a car accident, falling out of a window, etc., is still fatal regardless of your stream.

So what happens when you die of unnatural causes in the wrong stream is that the universe scans you and your soul, sees that you haven't completed your inevitables, and sends you back into the, hopefully, right stream.

This is where I come in.

My job is to get from stream to stream, find anyone who isn't supposed to be there, and set them in the right time.

My job is to kill them.

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**Good? Bad? Let me know if you're feelin' up to it.**

**Thanks for reading!**


	2. Glass

**A/N: And here it is, Chapter 1, as promised. Hopefully with a bit more plot and some actual story.**

***Trigger warning for blood***

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**Chapter 1: Glass**

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**November 2009**

"Look, mate, I'm not going through this again."

"I was just fuckin' asking! No need to get so pissy!"

"No, no. Every time you're 'just fucking asking' you end up getting your way."

"Goddamn. Fine! I'll go. No need to get your knickers in a twist."

With one last glare my way, James Cook shoved open the front door of the dingy pub we had been sitting in for the last few hours. The wind pushed back against it hard enough to knock Cook backwards and send the door slamming shut. He cursed under his breath and braced his shoulder against the door then shoved his way through it. He stumbled, but actually made it out that time. The door crashed violently into its frame the second he let go of it.

Through the door's streaked windows I watched as he pulled his head back and lifted the collar of his windbreaker as high as it would go to try to block out some of the rain pounding down on him.

When I turned back toward the bar, most of the patrons and Cook's Uncle Keith, the owner, were all staring at me.

I crossed my arms and petulantly said, "What? It was his turn to get a cab."

The customers, all three of them, grumbled and turned back toward their half-empty drinks. Keith laughed and shook his head at me, "One of these days some'uns gunna knock some sense into ya', girlie."

I rolled my eyes and turned back to the rain. It was slapping against the roof and the ground mercilessly, the sound of it a dull roar that muffled most everything else, everything except the wind which sailed into the building hard enough to shake its very roots. Cook must have been struggling to stay on his feet.

I was glad, for once, to actually be in that shitty little pub, and to think, all it took was a fucking monsoon. I almost forgot about the sticky bar, spotted floors, and permanent fog of smoke. Almost. But they could never really be hidden, though the horribly dim lighting was making a valiant effort.

A few minutes later, the door was ripped open and Cook fought his way inside. The sounds of the storm roared inside now that the seal was broken. Cook grabbed the door frame and heaved himself inside, the door slammed behind him, rattling the frame and knocking him to the floor. He bounced back up though and promptly shook like a dog.

He walked to the bar and called over his shoulder, "It's no fuckin' use. No one's out driving in this shit." Then he plumped himself on an unstable stool and held up two fingers toward Keith.

"So we're just going to sit here until the fucking rain stops?"

"Listen blondie, I've fuckin' 'ad the worst day. I just wanna get pissed and talk shit with my friend. So if you're gonna act like you've got a stick up your arse, then fuckin' move and I'll talk shit with Keith."

I held up my hands in defense, "Alright, alright. Fine." I dropped into the chair next to him and yelled at Keith, "How 'bout those pints then?"

"Make it a couple shots of tequila there Keithy!"

Keith nodded and went about filling up two shot glasses to the brim. As soon as the glasses hit the table, Cook had one in each hand, and a moment later they were both slammed back on the table while Cook screwed up his face.

"That'll do then." He shrugged and held up two fingers once more at Keith, who, without a second though, immediately filled the glasses until there was barely a millimeter 'til the clear liquid reached the top.

When Keith went to go talk to the few other patrons, I turned to Cook and asked, "So what happened then?"

Cook just gestured to the shot glass in front of me - oh he was actually going to let me drink it this time - and waited until I picked it up before he started his countdown, "One, two, three, bottom's up ya' pussy!"

I scrunched my nose and lips together and Cook howled his stupid wolf call.

"That's the stuff, Naomikins!"

"Yeah, yeah, fuck off," I smiled at him, "Now, tell Auntie Naomi what happened that's got you all would up."

"Right." He shook out his shoulders like he was warming up for something, "So I was at the fucking site" - Cook works construction - "just fucking doing my job, hammering the shit out of some sidewalk and this little brunette in her fucking 'Ms. Important,' outfit" he actually used air quotes, "walks right up to me, hips shaking, eyes staring right at me, the whole deal. So obviously, I'm thinkin' she's lookin' for a willy-wag, you know. So I said to her, 'babes you lookin' to jack off my hammer or sumfin' which is some of the classic-est shit I've got, and this bitch, she fuckin' slaps me, straight up, no warning, in front of the boys. Which like whatever I've been slapped before, but then this skinny little thing gets right in my face, screamin' about sexual harassment an' shit an' I'm like, 'babes stop yellin', my dick can't get any harder,' an' this bitch just yells 'you're fired!'" Cook's voice knocked up a few octaves and adopted a rather nasal quality for the impersonation, "And I'm like you've got to be shitting me. No tiny arsehole is gonna slap me an' then fire me, fuck that. So I told her that she best fuck off. At this point we're both fuckin' screamin' an' my skinny twat of a boss comes running out of his cosy little office all 'I'm sorry, Ms. Richardson this an' this'll never happen again, Ms. Richardson that' and then the fuckin' dick actually fuckin' fires me. An' now I've got no goddamn job and a sore as hell face to match." Cook sat back in his chair with a noticeable sigh and downed the shot that Keith had placed in front of him during the rant.

"You can always work for me, Cookie." Keith grumbled from the other side of the bar.

Cook nodded thankfully and blew air out of his mouth heavily. "It's just, I actually liked that fuckin' job, apart from my fuckin' boss. I mean it was shit and paid awful, but the lads were funny and new a fit bird when they saw one."

I chucked lightly and wrapped my right arm around his shoulders. "If you want you can stay at mine for a few weeks, spare bedroom's still open."

He nodded, then shook his head. "Nah, I'll just bounce around for a while." His voice got noticeably more cheerful, well, fake cheerful, as he spoke, "I was gettin' bored of that gig anyway."

"Well the offer's always there."

He nodded a bit more thoughtfully this time, then turned his head to the right to look away from me for a second, but grabbed the hand I still had around his shoulder. "Naoms, your watch is stopped."

"Fuck, really?" I pulled my arm back toward me and checked the screen. _Dammit_. The digital numbers displayed an unchanging '11 March 2007. 9:53 PM.'

"When are you going?"

"Only a couple years back."

"You leavin' now?" His voice was a harsh whisper.

"Got to." I shrugged.

He shook his head and raised his voice, "You can't fuckin' do it here!"

"I've got no choice, Cook." I stood up. "I'll be back soon enough." I patted his shoulder and headed toward Keith, Cook grumbled behind me.

"Oi, Keith! Can I get a bottle of beer?"

"Poundin' them down today, are we?"

"Yeah, yeah, whatever." I took the bottle and walked to the back of the pub where the bathrooms were. Luckily, the ladies' room was hardly used so it was relatively clean. I mean, it smelled like vomit and bleach and the sink was an oddly greyish color, but it had to be nicer than the guys' room.

I locked the door behind me and sat on the toilet with the lid down.

_Fuck it. _I downed the beer in 3 solid gulps. _Could always use some liquid courage. _I took a few deep breathes before standing back up to face the dirt-coated mirror over the sink. I set the beer bottle in the sink, held on to either side of it both hands, and stared at the girl looking back at me - mildly intoxicated, mildly wild eyes stared back at me. With a smirk for the girl in the mirror and one solid swing against the side of the faucet, the beer bottle crashed into the sink and shattered on impact. Shards of glass flew all over the small room.

I picked up one of the larger pieces resting in the sink and brought it up to my eyes. The low light reflected off the brown glass and separated into several beams that danced around the room as I twisted the shard around in my hand. A small sliver nicked my hand and cut open a scratch just deep enough to draw blood. _Sharp. _I turned on the cold water until it was cascaded down and slowly filling the sink.

With one more breath in, I brought the fragment to my wrist and pressed heavily down until blood pooled to the surface. I leaned desperately into the sink as I dragged the glass through my skin, a clean red line forming in its wake. It took a moment for the pain to register, but when it did, a rush of expletives flowed from my mouth.

"Shit, shit, shit!" It fucking hurt, but I kept pulling the glass until the cut was more than halfway to my elbow. Blood was pouring from the wound, but I did my best to contain it to the sink.

I was barely able to grab the glass with my injured arm, but I still managed the switch. I pushed the point into my skin and yank it, hard. This time the cut wasn't as long, but it was a hell of a lot deeper. I dropped the blood-red glass into the basin and held my arms over the sink, trying to keep the blood from dripping all over the floor.

I watched my blood gush from the openings into the water, turning it orange, for what seemed like hours, but couldn't have been more than a few seconds, until I started to feel really dizzy.

Slowly, everything began to fade to black. My arms were heavy. My head ached.

I felt myself falling to the floor.

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**March 11, 2007**

I woke up on the cold floor of a bathroom I didn't recognize. My head throbbed from where I must have slammed it into the ground and my wrists ached from the glass probably still embedded in my skin.

"Fuck." I pulled both of my wrists up to my face and checked for any glass still left. There was none, just two new scars: raised, white rivers flowing parallel to my veins.

Usually, I tried to keep the wounds somewhere easy to cover up (my go-to method of sort-of-suicide is a bullet straight through the heart - it's pretty easy to find, what with the layers of scars directly over it.), since people seem to think you might be a danger to yourself if you've got scars covering your body from head to toe.

Anyway, right now, in his stream, Cook will be unlocking the door to the bathroom. He'll find a room littered with the shattered glass of the beer bottle, probably a fair amount of blood on the ground, depending on how good I was at keeping my arms actually over the sink, the sink itself, still running and filled with orange-red water, but a distinct lack of dead body.

See, what happened was that I genuinely did die in that stream, but when the universe did its scanning thing, it determined that I haven't completed all my inevitables (whatever they may be), and sent me to this time, the time my watch displayed (though now the clock is moving again, just according to this stream's time) so that I can do whatever I'm supposed to do here.

Unfortunately, it's Cook's job to clean up the mess whenever I can't, which seems to be an awful lot seeing as the universe likes to demand my attention when I'm otherwise occupied.

A general rule of thumb is to not let people walk in on an apparent murder scene unless they're your best friend and happen to know that in fact no one was murdered, someone just committed suicide in order to travel to another time. So remember that in case you ever find yourself in a similar circumstance.

The whole time-traveling shit was the worst thing to ever happen to me back when I was in school. I'd have to leave class every week or so, sometimes more often depending on how much of an idiot the universe decided to be, and find some empty lab room so that I could scour the supply closet in there for whatever toxic chemicals were on hand. You'd be surprised about how much deadly crap is in those closets and how little security there is over it.

One time, I hadn't taken enough quickly enough to kill me before the pain knocked me out. I was out cold, on the floor (as usual), laying in my own sick. And that is exactly how Cook and Effy, my other best friend, found me.

They had fobbed off class to look for a quiet place to shag. Well, an empty supply closest seemed like as good a place as any. That is until they realized it wasn't so empty and some girl was lying unconscious with a bottle of hydrochloric acid leaking onto the floor next to her. To their everlasting credit, they did manage to shut off their hormones for long enough to call an ambulance.

Next thing I knew, I was waking up in a hospital room to Cook's obnoxious howl of a laugh. Apparently he, Effy, and my mother had hit it right off when the both of them refused to leave my side, claiming 'finders, keepers' over me. For the next week or so of recovery and psych evaluations, neither of them left my side for more than a few minutes, despite my protests that I hadn't actually tried to off myself and that I didn't need babysitters.

And you know what, through every fight and fuck-up, through every increasingly weird phase of my life, they still haven't left my side.

Anyway, there I was, lying on some stranger's bathroom floor, in some time that I didn't belong, probably concussed, and with more scars than skin, waiting to figure out just which undeserving stranger the universe fucked over badly enough that I had to kill whoever it was to put them out of their misery.

Welcome to my life.

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**Good? Bad? Let me know if you're feelin' up to it.**

**Thanks for reading!**


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